The Traveling Locavores are spending Thanksgiving in Austin, Texas. Where ever you are spending your Thanksgiving we wish you have the very best day. Happy Thanksgiving 2021!

From our home on the road to yours

There will be roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. Just because we’re living in an RV doesn’t mean I can prepare a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner with all of the fixings in my beautiful, well equipped, but small, RV kitchen!

For my stuffing I added a seasonal ingredient called mirliton. I used the mirliton in a couple of different ways. The first was diced, in my Thanksgiving stuffing instead of the celery that I normally use. The second was in maque choux. But there are endless preparations for this delicious gourd. Once you have done the initial prep, you could hollow out a well and stuff them with a shrimp, mushrooms or sausage. They could be used chilled and sliced thinly in a salad. You could use them in corn muffins.

I want to give you some facts about mirliton so you can be well informed. This vegetable, which is in the squash family, grows on a vine which deftly wraps along chain-link fences and backyard arbors becoming the favorite local squashy simply always hanging around on the vine. It has rigid to knobby fluorescent green skin and thick pear shaped body. And somehow it has wrapped itself around the hearts of South Louisiana for generations.

This same vegetable is also known as chayote in Mexico and Central America. The term mirliton seems to be unique to South Louisiana and Haiti. Sadly, after Katrina, it is not as common as it used to be to see the mirliton vines climbing willy-nilly across New Orleans.

Usually treated as you would a root vegetable, mirliton adds a starchiness and mild flavor to dishes. It has a mild flavor that takes on the taste of the other ingredients in a recipe. It is very easy to prepare once you know the basics.

Happy Thanksgiving 2021